In chapter 11 of his Book, Hamza deals with the age old philosophical problem of evil and suffering.
He claims that the atheistic position is wrong mainly on the following two grounds:
1. First and most importantly, they have isolated the two attributes of God i.e. His being omnipotent and merciful. They didn't take into consideration one more attribute of Him, which is being the most wise.
2. They have falsely assumed that Islamic revelation hasn't provided rational reasons for why God created evil and suffering.
The points which he presents under his second argument are totally irrelevant, redundant and sometimes unscientific. Hence, not worth refuting. Let's focus on the first argument.
Basically he says, *We kiddo human beings with our little brains can never comprehend the infinite wisdom of an infinite God. (by definition, he says, if He is fully comprehensible, He is not a God). Hence if children are born with bone-cancer or juvenile-Glaucoma, this is not just to be seen as suffering but as a small part of a grand cosmic scheme set up by the Most Wise, Most Merciful and All Powerful God. We may not understand the significance and purpose of the humongous scale of suffering which the Incas and Aztecs went through now, but there must definitely be some reason behind this which God only knows, as 'He has the picture, and we have just a pixel'.
To support his argument, Hamza quotes from the Quran the story of Moses and Khidar. The actions of Khidr, after-all, were apparently evil and an instrument of suffering. But seen with the knowledge of hindsight, they were meant either to stop a bigger future-evil or to bring a greater good in future. Hence he proves that current evils and sufferings may turn out to be a boon in future.
Now, imagine that God hasn’t provided us with any of the answers which Khidar gave to Moses in the Quran. Moses and Khidar parts without letting Moses know the actual reasons behind his particular behaviours. In that case, I have two arguments:
1. The argument of Hamza that everything however evil it might seem at a moment has some divine wisdom would have still been true (as we, the kiddos, after all can’t doubt the wisdom of God). So, what is the purpose that this story exactly serves ? None ! Why make such an effort ! Why use this story to prove your argument? The story is not proving your argument. The story actually is built upon your argument. This is not a proof. This is an example. Examples are useless as they can be cherry picked !
2. Secondly, even if we didn’t have those answers which Khidar provided in the end, the three stories mentioned in Quran are so simplistic that any intelligent human would have given many of such reasons, which would make the acts of Khidar appear full of wisdom. However, the stories of this planet are not so simplistic (see the video). The best of brains amongst Muslims and Non-Muslims both can’t help scratching their head while making sense of the humongous amount of suffering on this planet.
Furthermore, Hamza consistently keeps mentioning that sufferings are boon to the believers. What about disbelievers then? What about that gutter-cleaner born as Shudra in India whose son had contracted Chicken-pox and died ? Hamza cleary sees everything from the perspective of *believing humans*. What about the humongous amount of suffering animals are going through since even before the advent of Homo-Sapiens ?
No comments:
Post a Comment